About Dave Doolin
Carpenter > Contractor > Caver > Collector of Rare Tropical Milkweeds > Engineer > PhD > Blogger. Of course.
Dave Doolin likes to build stuff, climb stuff, grow stuff, and discover how-to-do stuff. And then write about it.
These are useful qualities when you’re creating a community (and knowledge!) around the ultimate community- (and SEO-) builder: WordPress.
Because when you want to create a community, create knowledge and yes, ye-gods-of-commerce, sell the cool and useful stuff you make, you need to:
- build a blog
- scale your business
- cultivate relationships and a community and maybe even a cult (the good kind, wherein people are passionate about you and your work, but still have free will)
- discover how-to do things and share ‘em
…but not necessarily in that order.
And that’s what Website in a Weekend is about.
It’s what Dave Doolin does, and is all about doing and teaching you.
Break It Down For Me. What Does Dave Doolin Do?
Dave figures out WordPress, Thesis, blogging, and community building and then shares his knowledge with his people – who of course love him madly when they’re not irritated with him for being an awful lot of work.
And Dave and his blog and all the tools he creates are a lot of work. Because Dave creates stuff that work and require action.
Dave writes.
- Blog posts about all things blogging (business, lifestyle, success); building community; building traffic; creating content; extending WordPress; getting started; making money; social media; staying inspired; website design; and website maintenance.
- White-papers. He figures out solutions to specific problems and shows you exactly how solve them, too.
- Practical WordPress Tips.
- Plugins. Well, they’re code but whatever. He makes ‘em.
- E-books. Blog Post Engineering (or: How to Publish the **** Out of Your Post) officially launches on May 5, 2010. If you want to maximize the impact of your writing magic, you need to know how to take care of the backend of each post (the tags, descriptions, categories, slugs – all of it. Dave’s got it handled and shows you how to own it, too).
Dave teaches.
In a former life, Dave taught undergraduate geology labs and guest-lectured in geology and undergraduate numerical analysis – so, perhaps obviously, WordPress and Thesis do not scare him. He’s an experienced teacher and as such put together this here website-in-a-weekend home-study WordPress course.
He’s happy to do it in person, too. And by “it”, we’re totally talking about WordPress.
Need him to teach you, your colleagues (or friends) and or a group the ins-and-outs of WordPress? Want him to speak at your conference? Go here.
Dave advises.
So. You’ve read the blog, completed the course, implemented the Practical WordPress Tips, worked through Blog Post Engineering…and you need more.
You’ve got specific questions that you need answered, and you need it now. From Dave.
He’s happy to oblige. Deposit $80 into his paypal account, call him up, and he’s yours for an hour. He’ll throw down some knowledge, you’ll implement, and your blog (and your business!) will fervently thank you. Metaphorically speaking.
Dave surfs.
This makes him a better person. Obviously.
The information and exercises in Dave’s blog posts, white-papers, e-books and courses aren’t always easy to execute, but neither are childbirth, surgery, marriage or exercise and people do those things all the time. Because they’re worth doing. Because the reward is worth the pain. Mostly.
Oh Hell. What is Dave Going to Make ME Do?
Dave’s method is a little wax-on, wax-off, grasshopper.
You’ll learn by doing it, every day. You’ll learn it by:
- reading
- working through the course‘s tutorials
- daily practice
- writing
- implementing practical WordPress tips
- getting acquainted with the tools so that you can do it all yourself or – if you end up outsourcing it – know what to ask for to ensure you’re getting good value from your subcontractors
- doing it
- doing it some more
- doing it every day
This is the same process Dave uses for his own business.
He’s a blogger. Dave blogs about blogging and how-to blog and how to make WordPress your witch-with-a-b.
And so, since he blogs about WordPress using WordPress, when he wants to know how to do something – or runs into a problem and discovers that the usual solution is (a) absent or (b) inelegant (c) outdated – then he figures it out himself. He tests it and then he writes about it. Dave writes “blog posts” (though, of course, prefers the word “articles” – he’s all academic and high-brow like that), tutorials, e-books, courses. He writes a lot.
In the last year, in this blog alone, Dave’s written 325,389 words in 349 posts and 90 pages. And six whitepapers. And an e-book.
This makes him happy. So do dark chocolate, salted almonds, San Francisco and surfing, but those are stories for another day.
All of this discovering, building, cultivating, scaling and writing means that when it comes to blogging, Dave Doolin knows what he’s doing – because he’s done it and is doing it – and he can teach you, too.
And your blog – and your business – will be better for it. If you take the leap and learn from the lessons on this site. Which you will. That’s why you’re here, right?
[Kelly is the best! -dave]
